Management & Security

Coordinator of the Curriculum

Prof. Terry Torre (DIEC, Università di Genova)

Research Lines

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ACCOUNTING

Alberto Quagli, Francesco Avallone, Paola Ramassa, Elisa Bonollo, Costanza Di Fabio, Elisa Roncagliolo

Research in this area entails the impact of the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on accounting and auditing practice. The spread of AI applications may produce a relevant transformation in the accounting and auditing industry. The application of AI facilitates the automation of repetitive tasks, thereby enhancing productivity and minimising human errors, but it can also affect other activities in the accounting practice. Potential research areas include the use of machine learning algorithms to analyse large volumes of accounting data, thus identifying trends and anomalies to improve fraud detection and financial trend forecasting. Another key area is the application of AI in financial advisory services, where it can provide tailored and strategic insights to businesses. A critical area of this research concerns the secure and ethical integration of AI technologies, with particular attention paid to regulatory compliance and the protection of sensitive data. Moreover, it is imperative to examine the potential risks associated with workforce displacement, job losses, reduced interpersonal communication, and the emergence of a "surveillance society." To address these issues comprehensively, the research employs a multidisciplinary approach that integrates both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The investigation involves case studies, empirical analyses, and interviews with experts.

ACCOUNTING FRAUDS AND SCANDALS

Alberto Quagli, Francesco Avallone, Paola Ramassa, Elisa Bonollo, Costanza Di Fabio, Elisa Roncagliolo

Accounting fraud represents the most severe form of financial reporting manipulation, potentially leading to scandals that result in contamination and a subsequent decline in the credibility of financial reporting. Despite the regulatory efforts, this complex phenomenon is challenging to prevent and contrast, leading to significant economic damage and societal repercussions. The primary objective of research in this area is to deepen the understanding of these fraudulent activities to enhance prevention and deterrence. Research topics encompass the determinants of fraud, how they are enacted and detected, as well as the resulting effects and consequences. This perspective is inclusive of both firms and public and private actors responsible for oversight, such as auditors and enforcers, across all stages of accounting fraud and scandals. Key interests include the perpetration and concealment of fraud, the operation and failure of controls, the impacts on the involved actors (i.e., firms, controls, and stakeholders), and the corporate responses in an accountability perspective. Studies in this field may employ both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

FINANCIAL REPORTING AND LABOUR REMUNERATION

Alberto Quagli, Francesco Avallone, Paola Ramassa, Elisa Bonollo, Costanza Di Fabio, Elisa Roncagliolo

Labour remuneration represents a central yet often underexplored issue in financial reporting research, as financial statements provide key evidence on how firms allocate economic value among different stakeholders. Research in this area aims to deepen the understanding of human labour through accounting information, with particular attention to personnel expenses, employment levels, value added distribution and related disclosures. Key research topics include the relationship between labour remuneration and firm performance, focusing on how financial statements capture the distribution of value added between shareholders and employees, as well as the workers’ participation in profits and capital. Further interests concern how changes in firm size, supply chain reconfiguration and automation are reflected in workforce numbers, labour costs and personnel-related accounting measures. This research stream also examines how corporate crises and restructuring affect employees dynamics through the analysis of financial statements and narrative reporting. Studies may adopt quantitative or qualitative methodologies.

BUSINESS ETHICS

Riccardo Spinelli

Business ethics intersects with organizational security, ensuring ethical and secure business practices. This interdisciplinary field integrates ethical principles, social responsibility, and security measures, addressing complex challenges at the nexus of morality and protection. Core elements include ethical decision-making, corporate governance, social impact, and risk management, crucial for navigating ethical dilemmas while safeguarding organizational integrity. Research delves into topics such as ethical leadership, data privacy, fraud prevention, and employee well-being, alongside emerging areas like cybersecurity policies, surveillance technologies, and the ethical implications of AI in security contexts.

SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Riccardo Spinelli

Incorporating security into organizational sustainability and environmental management ensures a comprehensive approach to responsible business practices. This multidisciplinary field integrates environmental concerns, social responsibility, and security measures. Core elements include sustainable resource management, environmental impact assessment, social equity, stakeholder management and engagement, sustainability communication, and risk mitigation strategies, such as disaster preparedness and cybersecurity measures. These components collectively contribute to building resilience, fostering trust, and promoting sustainable development within organizations.

Robotics and AI in healthcare and social care

Angelo Gasparre

Advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and the transformation of work in healthcare and social care settings: hybrid human-robot work systems, robotic surgery, telemedicine, coordination processes, learning, work autonomy and organizational change in care activities

INDUSTRY 4.0, ROBOTICS AND AI IN HIGH-TECH PRODUCTION

Industry 4.0, collaborative robotics and artificial intelligence in high-tech production systems: hybrid human-robot work systems, transformation of work practices, skills development and organizational change in industrial contexts

QUANTUM-INSPIRED ALGORITHMS FOR FINANCIAL SECURITY AND CRYPTOGRAPHIC RISK

Marina Resta

The advent of quantum computing presents both unprecedented opportunities and existential threats to financial system security. 

Current cryptographic protocols underpinning critical financial infrastructures—from blockchain transactions to secure interbank communications—face potential obsolescence as quantum technologies mature. This research line investigates quantum computing's dual nature in finance: as a risk multiplier threatening encryption standards (RSA,

ECC) widely deployed in banking and payment systems, and as an opportunity for developing quantum-inspired optimization algorithms to solve computationally intensive problems including portfolio optimization, derivative pricing, and systemic risk assessment in large-scale financial networks. Key research areas include vulnerability assessment of financial cryptographic systems to quantum attacks, development of post-quantum cryptographic solutions tailored for financial applications, quantum-inspired machine learning for fraud detection and credit scoring, and hybrid classical-quantum approaches for near-term applications. A critical focus is on cryptographic risk management strategies, developing frameworks to evaluate institutional quantum readiness and manage transition risks during migration to quantum-resistant architectures. The research employs multidisciplinary methods integrating cryptography, quantum information theory, mathematical finance, and empirical analysis, with collaborations involving quantum computing companies, financial institutions, and regulators. Outcomes include quantum risk assessment frameworks for regulators, transition roadmaps for post-quantum cryptography adoption, optimization toolkits leveraging quantum-inspired algorithms, and security protocols for quantum-safe financial communications, contributing to financial infrastructure resilience in the quantum era.

EMERGING RISKS AND FINANCIAL STABILITY 

Laura Nieri, Stefano Piserà; Francesca Querci; Rosalia Santulli

Research in this area analyzes emerging risks—including climate, geopolitical, and technological risks—and their transmission channels to the financial system. Particular attention is devoted to the identification and measurement of vulnerabilities at both the intermediary and market levels. A further area of investigation concerns the interconnections between the financial sector and the real economy, with a focus on shock amplification mechanisms. The research also explores the role of technological innovations, such as financial digitalization and artificial intelligence, in generating new risks and opportunities. Special emphasis is placed on the implications of climate transition and sustainability for financial stability. The research further evaluates the effectiveness of regulatory frameworks and supervisory tools in mitigating risks. Finally, it considers the international dimensions of emerging risks, including spillover and contagion effects.

CORPORATE FINANCING AND PRIVATE CAPITAL MARKETS

Laura Nieri, Stefano Piserà; Francesca Querci; Rosalia Santulli

The growing importance of private capital markets in the current financial landscape provides the starting point for this research line, which is devoted to analyzing the dynamics of corporate financing. The focus is on instruments such as private equity, venture capital, private debt, and private credit, examining their structure, functioning, and evolution. Particular emphasis is placed on the effects of private capital on firm growth, innovation, and performance. At the same time, the research addresses the potential sources of risk associated with the expansion of private capital markets, including illiquidity, informational opacity, and financial leverage. From this perspective, it analyzes the channels through which potential tensions may propagate to the financial system as a whole, with particular attention to the role of institutional investors and non-bank financial intermediaries in the transmission and amplification of shocks.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND PRISON WORK INTEGRATION: EMERGING BUSNESS MODELS FOR REDUCING RECIDIVISM

Lara Penco, Simone Poledrini

The research line aims to investigates models of social entrepreneurship in Italy that provide employment opportunities for individuals in prison or semi-liberty regimes. The research focuses on how social entrepreneurship develop sustainable economic activities that generate social value and contribute to reducing recidivism. The research is part of the broader CNEL project “Zero Recidivism. Study, Training and Work in Prison: From Project Experiences to Systemic Actions Inside and Outside Prison.” https://www.cnel.it/Chi-Siamo/XI-Consiliatura/Progetti-e-Iniziative-XI-Consiliatura/Recidiva-zero-Studio-formazione-e-lavoro-in-carcere-dalle-esperienze-progettuali-alle-azioni-di-sistema 

RISK MANAGEMENT, VALUE CREATION, AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE CULTURAL SECTOR

Paola Dameri e Alberto Monti 

This research stream explores the relationship between risk management, value creation, and accountability in the cultural sector, focusing on the risks associated with the inability to generate, measure, and effectively communicate cultural, social, and territorial value. Cultural organizations increasingly operate in complex environments characterized by financial constraints, stakeholder pressure, reputational exposure, and growing demands for transparency and sustainability disclosure. In this context, the absence of adequate reporting and evaluation systems may compromise legitimacy, funding opportunities, stakeholder trust, and long-term resilience.

The research investigates how financial and non-financial reporting, ESG disclosure, integrated reporting, and intangible asset valuation can support frameworks capable of demonstrating the multidimensional value generated by cultural organizations and their impact on local development, wellbeing, and territorial sustainability. Particular attention is devoted to the how to measure and report intangible assets — such as cultural heritage, intellectual capital, reputation, creativity, and relational networks. 

Additionally, the aim is to investigate how non-financial reporting can be used as a strategic tool to convey value and build long-term partnership with companies in the private sector and attract financing increasing the sustainability of non-profit and cultural organizations and their territorial impact. Given the lack of standards, attention is devoted to exploring the drivers and characteristic of both cultural organization and their non-financial reporting able to attract financing and how to measure their cultural, social, economic, and environmental impact.

PLATFORM ECONOMY, GIG ECONOMY, JOB SECURITY AND PRECARIZATION

Lorenzo Mizzau e Teresina Torre

This research line explores the impact of recent social and technological transformations on both, at a macro level (global and local, industrial), the organization of labor, and, at a more meso and micro levels, the organization of work within organizations. Indeed, the rapid evolution of digital technologies has led to a deep reconfiguration of contractual and psychological relationships between individuals and organizations, enacting significant shifts in reciprocal expectations, motives, legal obligations or circumvention, and different possibilities that have yet to be analyzed in their behavioral and ethical implications. This research line aims to examine how these transformations are influencing organizational behavior, and creating potential opportunities for both higher employee autonomy and discretion (potentially leading to higher job and life satisfaction), and lower control and transparency in terms of reciprocal obligations, paving the way for lower satisfaction as well as precarity and exploitation.

With strong grounding on empirical research and informed by a variety of theoretical frameworks (e.g., actor-network theory, process labor, creative and cultural work, sociotechnical approach), this research line aspires to contribute to the broader discourse on the future of work and inform strategies for managing social and technological transitions within organizations and workers’ associations, looking at their sustainability in terms of performance, wellbeing, and ethical implications.

OPERATIONS, SUPPLY CHAIN, AND PROCUREMENT

Silvia Bruzzi

In recent years, awareness has grown about the level of vulnerability the supply chains of the current globalized economy are exposed to. Today world economy is characterized by a strong geographic interdependence among supply chains, industries, and countries with an increasing exposure of all the actors to disruption events. Supply chain vulnerability has been pushed to the fore since the beginning of this century, because of external factors, such as increasing major disrupting events, but also of performance-driven supply chain strategies. Also digital technologies can represent both a solution to make supply chains safer and a risk driver, causing lock-in effects and exposure to new disruptions. Particular attention is paid to the concept of supply chain resilience, for the systematization of which much research needs to be done. In this context, the research line aims to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics and the search for solutions capable of making economic systems, supply chains, and enterprises’ operations more resilient, with particular attention to the European economy, which is particularly under stress today, with the aim of contribution towards the social and economic security of the Continent.

ENERGY SECURITY

Silvia Bruzzi

Energy security is the top priority in the current global geopolitical situation. Energy is upstream of all economic systems and all supply chains; therefore, its stability in terms of supply and utilization technologies is fundamental for broader social and economic stability. The situation appears particularly critical for the European Union, which, lacking the sources that fuel its economy, as the world's largest energy importer, is in a situation of severe vulnerability. The green transition now in progress is seeking to reduce the dependence of economic systems on fossil fuels through the development of renewable sources, but it will not solve the European Union’s dependence. The opportunities offered by renewables cannot be exploited massively by most of the European territories, much depending on the morphology configuration, weather conditions and population density. Moreover, minerals needed for the energy transition are even more concentrated than fossil sources. The research line addresses different topics from an economic-managerial perspective to investigate solutions to govern the current transition, promoting security: transition and transformation of economic systems, conversion of energy supply chains and industrial supply chains, management of mature technologies and development of new ones (e.g., green hydrogen), and end-users access to energy